Sunday, July 28, 2013

St Francis was not an artist himself, of course, but he helped bring about a new religious vision that emphasized the human and the personal. This new humanistic thinking gradually began to be reflected in works of art.

On our art tour of Italy in June (2013), we went to Assisi and saw the home of St Francis. We visited San Damiano, the little church which St Francis famously rebuilt...

...and inside we saw the crucifix that he said spoke to him.

We also visited the hermitage on top of Mount Subasio where St Francis lived, preached, and meditated.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

So far, we have studiedAncient Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, theHebrews,thebirth of Christianity, the Middle Ages, and Hinduism and India. For the last five months we have been studying the Italian Renaissance and in June we went on the most amazing trip to Italy, where we saw so many of the most famous Renaissance art works (more on our trip later).As usual, we used Gloria Fiero's Humanistic Traditionto
start us off with our studies, but then we read and watched
lots of other cool stuff too and went on tours of museums and churches both in NY and in Italy. BooksThe Decameron by BoccaccioDante Alighieri's The Divine ComedyArt in Renaissance Italy, John Paoletti The Very Short Introduction to the Renaissance by Jerry BrottonThe Very Short Introduction to the Renaissance Art by Geraldine Johnson